Many conventional forms of communication networks are built on the availability of centrally managed infrastructure including access points, routers and servers, where the individual participants communicate with the network and other individual users through the network. In such an instance, security relative to any particular user and their corresponding communications is managed by the network, where the users do not generally communicate directly with each other. In such an instance, each user communicates with the network, and the network manages the routing of the communication to its proper destination.
However such a communication environment requires the establishment and maintenance of the network infrastructure, which is often geographically fixed, in the areas where communications are desired, and which further require support for a communication capacity that is desired by the users. In some instances, access to the network may come with a financial cost to the user, whether there is a cost for accessing the network and/or a cost associated with the amount of information being communicated. Because an established infrastructure that is available to a particular user is not always present, or because it can be more economically beneficial to do so, users may sometimes wish to establish an ad-hoc network, where the users communicate more directly with their intended targets on a peer-to-peer basis without the control or intervention of a centralized agent. However in such instances, alternative provisions may need to be made for security that had previously been handled by a pre-established network infrastructure.
An ad-hoc network is defined as a decentralized type of network that does not rely upon pre-existing infrastructure. Networking functions previously provided by a pre-existing fixed network infrastructure would now need to be handled by the network participants, sometimes referred to as nodes or peer devices. While in some instances, each node can sometimes have relatively equal status, in other instances one or more particular nodes can assume a greater level of control or management. For example, in WI-FI Direct, a group owner can be established. In such an instance, the group owner may function similar to an access point, and thereby enable operability with other WI-FI devices that may not otherwise support WI-FI Direct. As a further example, Bluetooth® allows for the establishment of a piconet, where in general, the entity establishing the piconet often becomes the master that can talk to one or more associated slave devices in point-to-point or point-to-multi-point fashion.
Ad-hoc networks, and more specifically, wireless ad-hoc networks can be either open or secure. Open networks, generally, allow for unrestricted access which can compromise privacy. Secure connections will often require users to undergo some form of provisioning or pairing, which can include a device accepting a requested connection, so as to acknowledge that the user knows the other party. Once acknowledged, devices can often connect or reconnect to each other without a subsequent prompt or notification on either device. In some instances, the same set of credentials may need to be used across all groups or other peer devices, which may be governed by the amount of L2 passwords that can be created. As such, separation of peers may not be feasible. Furthermore, these passwords can be tied to a particular device, and hence not portable across multiple devices owned by the same person. As such, a particular owner may need to separately authenticate each of their devices relative to each of the ad-hoc networks in which the owner may want to participate.
Furthermore, where previously there may have been a single communication connection to manage, between a particular user and the network infrastructure, in an ad-hoc or peer-to-peer environment, a particular user may now need to manage multiple connections with multiple different other users.
Correspondingly, the present inventors have recognized that it would be beneficial to manage the trust defined between different users to extend the relationship to other users without necessarily requiring the user to manage each potential relationship individually. In turn, the applicant has recognized that it may be further beneficial to provide a value defining a share authority level, that can be used to provide peer key sharing in qualifying circumstances.